Ajay KumarAsus ZenFone ARThe unlocked Asus ZenFone AR puts Google Tango in an accessible form factor with solid hardware, but the AR experience still feels unpolished, and the price is high for what you get.

The unlocked Asus ZenFone AR puts Google Tango in an accessible form factor with solid hardware, but the AR experience still feels unpolished, and the price is high for what you get.

Augmented reality takes a step closer to everyday reality with the Asus ZenFone AR. As the second phone to support Google Tango, the ZenFone AR is a stronger showcase for the technology than last year's Phab 2 Pro from Lenovo. Asus packs Tango sensors into a smaller, more usable form factor than the Phab 2, with a more powerful processor. That makes it better from a hardware perspective, though Tango itself still doesn't feel totally ready for prime time. And at $699 for the model we tested, the ZenFone AR comes close in price to the Samsung Galaxy S8, which remains a better phone all around, and our Editors' Choice.

Design, Features, and Display

The Phab 2 Pro is huge (7.1 by 3.5 by 0.4 inches HWD, 9.1 ounces) in order to accommodate the multiple sensors initially required by Tango, including a large fisheye lens. The ZenFone AR uses a new tri-sensor system that cuts out the fisheye and makes do with a 23-megapixel primary camera sensor combined with motion-tracking and depth-sensing cameras, and an IR sensor.

This allows Asus to pare down the size of the ZenFone AR to a relatively reasonable 6.3 by 3.1 by 0.4 inches and 6.0 ounces. That's still pretty big compared with the Galaxy S8 (5.9 by 2.7 by 0.3 inches, 5.5 ounces), but it's a heck of a lot easier to fit in your pocket than the Phab 2 Pro. Double pressing the home button launches One Hand mode, which shrinks the screen down to one corner so you can easily reach across it with your thumb.

Build quality is solid. The sides of the phone are made of gray metal with a clicky power button and volume rocker on the right, a USB-C charging port and 3.5mm audio jack on the bottom, and a combined SIM/microSD card slot on the left. The latter worked fine with a 256GB card. Alternately, you can use a second SIM if you want to have two phone numbers at once. The back of the phone is made of soft, grippy leather. All the various Tango sensors are located in a cluster near the camera, sectioned off by a metal panel.

On the other side you have a 5.7-inch, 2,440-by-1,440 Super AMOLED display covered in Gorilla Glass 4. The resolution works out to a sharp 515ppi, making it denser than the Phab 2 Pro's 6.4-inch panel (459ppi), but not quite as sharp as 570ppi Galaxy S8. Still, the display delivers the rich, saturated colors and inky blacks AMOLED is known for. Viewing angles are good and the screen gets bright enough to use outdoors. Under Settings, you'll find various toggles to increase or decrease color saturation, change screen temperature between warmer and cooler colors, increase touch-screen sensitivity when wearing gloves, and enable an always-on display to show you the time, date, and notifications.

Below the screen is a physical home button that doubles as a fingerprint sensor with a pair of backlit capacitive buttons next to it. The Recents key can be programmed to take a screenshot or launch into Multi-Window mode, letting you split the screen and run two apps at the same time.

Network Performance and Connectivity

The ZenFone AR is available unlocked and supports LTE bands 1/2/3/4/5/7/12/13/20/29, for compatibility with AT&T and T-Mobile in the US. The phone is also available through Verizon for $648. I tested it on T-Mobile in midtown Manhattan and saw decent network connectivity, with a top speed of 7.6Mbps down and 21.5Mbps up, with the lower download speed likely being due to network congestion.

The phone also supports dual-band Wi-Fi on the 2.4GHz and 5GHz bands, as well as NFC for contactless payment. You only get Bluetooth 4.2 though, rather than the newer Bluetooth 5.0 supported on most new flagships. Similarly, the Snapdragon 821 processor doesn't support gigabit LTE, so you won't be able to use those networks once they start rolling out. Those are relatively minor omissions right now, but will become bigger ones in the near future.

Call quality is decent. Transmissions are muddy and can be faint on the receiving end. Fortunately, noise cancellation is good at blotting out background noise and the earpiece volume is loud. There's also a special Outdoor mode that can be activated to increase volume in the earpiece and speaker, which can be helpful for a noisy environment.

Audio quality is good. The single speaker on the bottom of the phone gets surprisingly loud. When you plug in with a pair of wired headphones, you can take advantage of 24-bit high-resolution sound. Using a pair of Meze 99 Classics, I experienced pleasingly crisp audio with well-defined highs and good bass. The built-in Audio Manager lets you pick between a number of sound profiles that adjust bass and treble for movies, games, music, outdoor listening, and vocals. You can also create your own custom profile. The phone supports the DTS Headphone:X protocol, which helps create virtual 7.1 surround sound. Mostly it just makes the sound field seem a bit wider, but it's a decent effect.

Google Tango

Google Tango is the AR platform we first saw debut on the Phab 2 Pro last year. Using a series of sensors to perceive depth, track physical motion, and map surrounding objects, it enables augmented reality in third-party apps ranging from games and educational showcases to shopping services and interior design tools. This is distinct from Apple's ARKit, which only needs the iPhone or iPad's regular camera without any additional hardware.

I tried to use the preloaded Tango app to find and download compatible apps only to encounter my first hiccup: there's no search bar. There are only two panels that show featured apps and the apps you've already downloaded. If you want to download non-featured apps or search for more Tango-compatible AR software, you need to use the Google Play store. Frustratingly, there's no easy way to sort the Tango apps there either. You can search for "AR" or "Tango," but you won't find every compatible app using just those terms, and there's no dedicated AR category.

In addition to the Tango app, two AR apps are preinstalled. Measure is a measurement app we first used when testing the Phab 2 Pro. It lets you set points and draw lines to find the length, width, and area of three-dimensional spaces. I found it to be useful and accurate, making it a good tool for carpenters, contractors, interior decorators, and anyone who needs to measure something that's hard to take a tape measure to.

Slingshot Island is a game that generates a floating three-dimensional island and has you use a slingshot to knock down towers of wood blocks. It's fun, but quickly becomes repetitive, which raises an issue I have with many of the Tango apps I tested: the paucity of compelling functionality.

Since last year, there's been little in the way of improved features and apps, and new ones feel raw and unpolished. There are some cool new ones, though, like Gap's DressingRoom app that generates a life-sized mannequin wearing the outfit of your choosing. You can pick the size, style, and color of clothing to get an idea of what it will look like on you, then use the embedded purchase link to buy it straight from your phone.

BMW Visualizer delivers a virtual tour of a life-size model of the BMW i3 or BMW i8. You can walk around it, get inside, and change the body color, rims, and seat material. It's a nifty app when it works, but it struggled to properly place the car on the ground, and the motion sensor frequently lost tracking. These apps serve as a showcase for what we can expect from more companies in the future, but they're not worth the $700 cost of admission on their own.

Processor and Battery

Under the hood, the ZenFone AR has a Qualcomm Snapdragon 821 processor clocked at 2.35GHz. It's not the latest and greatest processor, but it holds its own in benchmark testing. It scored 156,690 on the AnTuTu test, which measures overall system performance, nearly as high as the Snapdragon 835-powered Galaxy S8 (158,266), and almost twice the speed of the Snapdragon 652-powered Phab 2 Pro (83,884).

With 8GB of RAM, multitasking isn't a concern. The phone is responsive when launching and switching between apps, it handles Tango apps capably, and plays high-end games without a hint of sluggishness. That said, it doesn't feel quite as snappy as the OnePlus 5, which has the same amount of RAM but a much lighter UI layer.

Battery life is solid. The ZenFone AR clocked 6 hours, 55 minutes when we streamed full-screen video over LTE at maximum screen brightness. That's better than the Galaxy S8 (5 hours, 45 minutes) and the Phab 2 Pro (5 hours, 31 minutes). Qualcomm Quick Charge 3.0 and Asus' proprietary fast-charging standard are both supported. I was able to charge the phone to full in a little over an hour with the included 18W adapter. If you need to eke out more battery life, a Power Saver menu under Battery Settings offers a variety of power-saving modes, like disabling cellular data or limiting CPU performance in order to save juice.

Camera

When it's not being used in the tri-sensor system for Tango-powered AR, the ZenFone AR's 23-megapixel rear camera serves as a capable shooter. In good lighting, it captures clear images with solid color reproduction, though fine details can look a bit soft; the Galaxy S8 does a better job in that regard. The really intriguing potential of the ZenFone AR comes from its interesting camera modes that can improve overall picture quality, such as Super Resolution mode, which uses resampling to capture photos with four times the standard resolution (92 megapixels total). The common-but-useful Manual mode lets you make your own adjustments to ISO, shutter speed, and other elements.

Indoor and lower-light shots are decent. The laser autofocus allows the ZenFone AR to focus fairly reliably indoors, without the blurred, out-of-focus shots that lesser phones' cameras sometimes deliver. Unfortunately, while they were in focus, most shots I took in Auto mode were too dark to use. Enabling the Night or Low Light modes didn't help much, since the former just adjusts the white balance so colors appeared warmer, and the latter lowers capture resolution and winds up delivering muddy shots. You're better off using manual controls to make your own adjustments.

The camera can record video at up to 4K resolution at 30fps. The footage looks good and is fairly jitter-free, thanks to optical stabilization to reduce the effects of camera shake.

The 8-megapixel front camera delivers good selfies. Pictures are clear, though facial features appear a bit soft with default settings enabled. A variety of sliders are available to adjust skin tone and add special effects.

Software

The ZenFone AR runs Android 7.0 Nougat with Zen UI 3.0, a heavy software layer that makes a number of visual changes to the notification shade, menus, app icons, and animations. It also supports a variety of customizable features that let you change the appearance of your home screen and load custom themes. On top of that, the ZenFone AR is packed with loads of other special features, settings, and toggles including a Bluelight filter, Easy mode, Kids mode, and Optiflex (a tool that lets you pick 10 apps to prioritize and boost the performance of). All of them have varying degrees of usefulness, but they make for an overwhelming experience if you're used to stock Android.

Despite the heavy UI layer, the phone is free of bloatware. Aside from Tango, Daydream, the two AR apps, and Asus tools like File Manager, you won't find any other preloaded software. Out of 128GB of internal storage, that leaves you with an ample 109GB for apps, photos, and video. It's plenty of space, and if you need more you can always use an SD card.

Conclusions

For $699, the Asus ZenFone AR is a solid phablet that serves as a showcase for the potential of AR. The slimmed-down design and relatively powerful hardware make it more accessible to the average user than the Phab 2 Pro, but it also costs $200 more. That price puts it in competition with flagships like the Samsung Galaxy S8, which is a smaller, sleeker, more powerful, and generally better phone in every regard. Unless you're an early adopter keen on experiencing AR, the Galaxy S8 remains our Editors' Choice for phones in this price range. If you're looking for a more affordable option, the OnePlus 5 is half the price and includes a dual-sensor camera with optical zoom. AR on phones might be the future, but the ZenFone AR shows we aren't there quite yet.

Read More

About the Author

Ajay Kumar is PCMag's Analyst obsessed with all things mobile. Ajay reviews phones, tablets, accessories, and just about any other gadget that can be carried around with you. In his spare time he games on the rig he built himself, collects Nintendo amiibos, and tries his hand at publishing a novel. Follow Ajay on Twitter @Ajay_H_Kumar.

Asus ZenFone AR

Asus ZenFone AR

Get Our Best Stories!

This newsletter may contain advertising, deals, or affiliate links. Subscribing to a newsletter indicates your consent to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. You may unsubscribe from the newsletters at any time.